Mexican crime statistics tend to elicit one of these reactions: 1) Optimistic disbelief: Have not seen anything in the news lately so surely it is getting better; can’t believe those numbers since it cannot possibly be that bad; the Mexican economy is growing, tourism is flourishing; Mexico’s beaches are the best! 2) Pessimistic disbelief: You can never believe the Mexican government statistics; it is actually much worse than what they report; what about the thousands of missing people, secret graves, and crimes never reported? 3) Numbers don’t matter. Mexico has always been corrupt and violent. Build the wall.

The Mexican agency known as the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security (SESNSP, a unit under the Secretariat of Governance or Gobernación, SEGOB, responsible for internal security in Mexico) releases monthly crime statistics available on the internet. The latest SESNSP report was released on April 20, 2018 and covers crimes including homicides, kidnapping, extortion, and human trafficking, among others. The data provided are described as “crimes reported in preliminary investigations initiated under the jurisdiction of the state prosecutors and Attorneys General in the 31 Mexican states.” The most recent release provides information on the numbers of victims of these crimes for the first three months of 2018.[1]

The monthly numbers reported by the SESNSP are considered preliminary in that the data originate in initial police and Public Ministry criminal investigations. However, these statistics have been consistently reported and made available online by this agency for several years and thus generate an internally consistent dataset.[2]

The other main source of statistics on homicides is the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). INEGI releases homicide data in a more finalized form that becomes available in July of the next year from the period being reported. INEGI homicide data are compiled from death certificates issued by Civil Registries in each state in which a medical examiner has determined the cause of death to be homicide. The latest available cumulative INEGI report was released in July 2017 and reports total homicides from 2007-2016.[3]

While I agree somewhat with the pessimist noted above, the fact that these statistics are imperfect and incomplete does not mean that they are worthless. Crime statistics around the world provide little uniformity, but such numbers are still an essential tool for comparing rates of violence in different countries, regions, and cities around the globe.[4]

The numbers in the table below include official Mexican government homicide statistics from 2007-March 2018, using INEGI figures for 2007-2016, with data from the SESNSP for 2017-March 2018.

In general, these numbers show a sharp increase in homicides beginning in 2008, rising to a peak in 2011 at the height of the so-called “drug war.” Homicides decreased slightly from 2012-2015 and then began to rise again in 2016. The total of 29,168 victims in 2017 was the highest number of homicides recorded during any year for which these data have been reported. During 2017, an average of 80 people per day were victims of homicide in Mexico. While this raw number is higher than for any other year, the highest murder rate (number of homicides per 100,000 people) was recorded in 2011. The lower murder rate of 23 in 2017 most likely results from population increase since 2011.[5] For the sake of comparison, the United States murder rate in 2016 was 5.3 according to the latest data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.[6]

It is important to note that these statistics do not account for the thousands of people reported missing and/or disappeared. The Mexican National Human Rights Commission reported at least 30,000 missing people as of the end of 2016.[7] The official Mexican government missing persons database (also a part of the Mexican Public Security Secretariat under SEGOB) maintains records on more than 34,000 missing or disappeared persons.[8] Families often organize their own informal support groups to search for disappeared relatives in some of the most dangerous regions in Mexico, including Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Michoacan, and Chihuahua. Few people express trust in the Mexican government’s efforts to find people who are reported missing. Indeed, families often report that their missing loved ones were last seen in the custody of police or military. To provide just a few representative examples from tens of thousands of media accounts:

Mexico City, February 2018: “Police detained Marco Antonio near a city bus stop where he was taking pictures of graffiti, a friend who was with him said. The officers accused Marco Antonio of attempted robbery, beat him, handcuffed him, and drove him away in an official vehicle, local media reported.”[9]

Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, March 2011: “In March, municipal police officers detained the two brothers of Armida Vazquez and whisked them away in patrol cars. Vazquez and her mother searched for Dante and Juan Carlos, cellphone shop workers in their mid-20s, and checked with the local and federal police here, to no avail. Nineteen days later, the strangled bodies of the brothers were found on the outskirts of this notoriously violent city. Witness testimony and other evidence led to three policemen, now in jail awaiting trial. But the police pushed back. Policemen in civilian clothes, Vazquez says, approached her mother outside church and told her to stop making trouble. When Vazquez made a statement against the suspects last month, she says other policemen and relatives of the officers threatened her outside the courthouse. Terrified, 20 members of the Vazquez family packed their bags and fled across the U.S. border to El Paso, Texas, a short trip into a world of gleaming shopping malls, well-kept highways and safe neighborhoods.”[10]

Ejido Benito Juárez, Chihuahua, December 2009: “The soldiers took them in the night. First they came for Nitza Alvarado Espinoza and Jose Alvarado Herrera. The 31-year-old cousins were sitting in a van outside a family member’s house when troops forced them into a military truck. Minutes later, soldiers arrived at the house of another Alvarado cousin, 18-year-old Rocio Alvarado Reyes. She was carried away screaming at gunpoint in front of her young brothers and baby daughter. It was Dec. 29, 2009 — the last time the cousins were seen alive. Exactly what happened to the working-class family from Ejido Benito Juárez, a dusty town in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, is the subject of a landmark case that will be heard beginning Thursday by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.”[11]

Considering the reality of the unknown number of the disappeared who have been killed, the cumulative Mexican homicide statistics for the 11-year period in the table above (245,999) should be considered the minimum number of victims. Add at least 30,000 disappeared for a possible total of 275,999: more than a quarter of a million violent deaths and/or disappeared people in a little more than a decade—an average of 69 people per day.

If the homicide rate is the measure, Mexico is not the most violent country in the hemisphere, but shares this dark spotlight with other populous countries in the region, now undergoing a crisis of violence. In a new study released on April 26, 2018, the non-governmental Igarapé Institute in Brazil reports: “Latin America suffers 33% of the world’s homicides despite having only 8% of its population. One-quarter of all global homicides are concentrated in four countries – Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.”[12]

According to data reported by Insight Crime, Venezuela was the most violent country in the region in 2017 with a murder rate of 89 per 100,000. The Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia reported more than 26,000 murders in 2017. Furthermore, El Salvador (60), Jamaica (56), Honduras (43), Brazil (30), and Guatemala (26) all reported murder rates higher than Mexico’s in recent years. There were more than 61,000 murders in Brazil (the most populous country in Latin America) in 2016, and Insight Crime notes that security conditions in Brazil are getting worse. See: https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/2017-homicide-round-up/

For the first three months of 2018, the Mexican SESNSP statistics indicate that an average of 85 people per day are victims of homicide in Mexico. This is an increase over the totals from late in 2017 and continues the upward trend in violence. If these numbers were to continue through all of this year, more than 30,000 people will be murdered in Mexico in 2018. The recent numbers also show that epicenters of violence continue to “hopscotch” around the country. States with the highest numbers of homicide victims according to the new report are:

Mexican States w/ Highest Homicides Jan-March 2018

Guanajuato

741

Guerrero

651

Estado de Mexico

602

Baja California

504

Jalisco

490

Veracruz

434

Chihuahua

433

The statistics skeptics mentioned above also include many who criticize the focus on numbers and rather insist that we should focus more on the humanity of the victims. I would argue that it is impossible to fully appreciate the suffering that stems from this societal crisis without accepting and trying to understand the orders of magnitude of the violence. And for that, we need numbers. I will cite just one example of many that can offer a startling comparison: In 2013, the Colombian National Center for Historical Memory published its report on the civil conflict in that country which concluded that at least 220,000 people were killed in the 54+ years of civil conflict between 1958 and 2012.[13]

The violence in Mexico—much of which is attributed to conflicts between organized crime groups and the government’s militarized response—has resulted in at least 240,000 homicides in only 11 years. There are certainly differences in population (current estimates: Colombia 49 million; Mexico 130 million) to consider, as well as differences in the political and social conditions in each country over time, but just considering the raw numbers, Mexico’s recent experience of homicidal violence is startling.[14]

We must also note that the Mexican government during all of this past decade of hyper-violence, has continually stated without evidence that 90 percent of homicide victims are members of drug cartels, thus branding tens of thousands of slaughtered Mexicans as criminals killing each other. More than 95 percent of homicides are never fully investigated by law enforcement. The government never acknowledges that the violence began its steep rise in parallel with President Calderon’s deployment of the Mexican Army into the so-called “drug war,” with support and billions of dollars in military and security aid from the United States.

After ten years of increasing violence and the metastasizing drug gangs, in December 2017, the government passed a new law that further empowers the Mexican military to act domestically against “internal security threats,” thus expanding and providing formal legal authority for the militarization of law enforcement. This same policy and practice in place since 2007 has coincided with the violent intentional homicides and forced disappearances of at least 250,000 people in Mexico.[15]

Emilio Gutierrez’ asylum case and appeal may actually draw much needed attention to the capricious (better word? wrong, illogical, lazy, badly argued?) nature of the decisions issued by hundreds of immigration judges every day in courts across the US. Judges who never give any public statements or interviews about their decisions.

Most of these judges’ decisions are never appealed because the asylum seekers have no access to attorneys who can use the law to write a principled argument to challenge the original decisions. Many asylum seekers (like Emilio Gutierrez and his son) spend months or years in prison (what immigration detention looks like and feels like and operates like) waiting for decisions on their cases. Many give up at the prospect of months or years MORE detention (prison) while waiting for a decision on their appeal. And go back to the places where they were tortured and/or threatened with death. And try to stay alive in hiding.

The president and attorney general of the United States over and over paint immigrants and asylum seekers as criminals who deserve prison and expulsion from the US. These executive pronouncements influence attorneys within the Department of Homeland Security who prosecute asylum seekers in immigration courts. These attorneys seldom have any evidence to actually challenge asylum seekers’ claims under US and international law, but rather, they simply try to portray them as imposters, liars, and fakers. Immigration court contorts the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” and rather requires that the asylum seeker PROVE that he/she is NOT a liar, in order to prevent the US government from sending them back to the place and situation that terrified them into fleeing and asking for protection in order to save their lives. Few Americans realize that most asylum seekers have never broken a law anywhere, but have come to the border of the US to ASK for protection from a criminal-political system in a country that uses state authority to persecute them.

(In homage to Arthur Miller and to the work of the late Charles Bowden):“ATTENTION MUST BE PAID.”

Donald Trump just pardoned a perjurer. How about helping get asylum for an endangered Mexican journalist who reported the truth about corruption?

President Trump recently pardoned Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the one-time White House aide convicted of lying to the FBI and trying to obstruct its investigation into the outing of a CIA agent. “Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life,” Trump said.

To forgive is divine. But while the president is in the mood, he might consider a far more deserving candidate.

For the past four months (at a cost to the taxpayers of some $250 a day), Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been holding Emilio Gutierrez Soto and his 24-year-old son, Oscar, in an El Paso, Texas, detention center, despite pleas for their release from the local Catholic bishop and many journalism organizations. One of them, the National Press Club, last year honored Gutiérrez and his fellow journalists in Mexico with its John Aubuchon Press Freedom award.

The SESNSP has just released new homicide statistics for Mexico covering January-March 2018. Below is screenshot of the summary information. The full report on homicide victims is available at this link:

The national numbers indicate an average of 85 people per day are victims of homicide in Mexico. This is an increase over the totals from late in 2017 and continues the upward trend in violence. If these numbers were to continue through all of this year, more than 30,000 people will be victims of homicide.

The numbers for “Homicidios dolosos” (intentional homicides) are as follows:

Jan 2,549

Feb 2,389

Mar 2,729

TOTAL 7,667

States with the highest numbers of homicides according to this new report covering January-March 2018:

I heard this as a lead story in the BBC news headlines last night. It is especially troubling since a glance at the statistics on homicides for the last 10 years shows sharp increases in murders coinciding with the deployment of the military into the cities and countrysides of Mexico beginning in late 2006 after the election of President Calderon. I have never seen any evidence that the presence of the Mexican Army and Marines in the so-called “war on drugs” has lead to decreases in violence.

I also note that this article mentions the figure of “25,000 murders” during 2017. Based on the latest data from SESNSP, the total number of murder VICTIMS last year was more than 29,000. Here is a quick explanation of what I think is the issue with these different numbers.

There is a set of statistics from SESNSP that is used by most media and to the best of my knowledge, they report the number of “averiguaciones previas” (basically investigations) for different crimes. That data is reported here and is called Incidencia Delictiva del Fuero Comun

This report has the smaller number. I think that is because what it counts are homicide investigations, basically cases opened up by the different state prosecutors. It does not provide the count of individual victims which can be multiple in one crime investigation. Here is the actual description from the dataset:

In this report, the number of victims of homicidio doloso is reported as 29,168.

I think this is the better report to use because the number of victims is more important to know than the number of investigations. A single homicide investigation can have multiple victims and thus I think this report is more useful because what I’m interested in is the death toll from the violence. The SESNSP reports should be taken as preliminary. The INEGI reports generally come out some months later and tend to be different but fairly close to the SESNSP data that come out each month. There are problems with such statistics, but since they have been collected and reported for many years, they can certainly be looked at for comparisons…what trends do they show. One thing that seems significant this year is how constant the monthly data have been. No significant drops or increases. Just the steady killing of 2,400 people every month, an average of 80 homicides per day, nationwide.

Below is a quick summary of the homicide data 2007-2017. I attached a file with screen shots from the report. molly

HOMICIDE VICTIMSINMEXICO2007-2017

Summary compiled by Molly Molloy, Latest update January 22, 2018

YEAR

#Homicides

Rate=#/100,000

2007*

8,867

8

2008

14,006

13

2009

19,803

18

2010

25,757

23

2011

27,213

24

2012

25,967

22

2013

23,063

19

2014

20,010

17

2015

20,525

17

2016

23,953

20

2017

29,168

23**

TOTAL

238,332

The SESNSP REPORTED A TOTAL of 2,575 victims of intentional homicide (homicidios doloso) in December 2017. This brings the total number of homicide victims in 2017 to 29,168. This total represents an average of more than 2,400 victims per month; 80 victims per day. Homicide victims in 2017 surpass the total number of homicide victims (27,213) in 2011, making 2017 the most violent year in recent history in Mexico. The murder rate is the highest since 2011, the slightly lower rate is because of the population increase.

**The murder rate in 2017 is based on the 2016 population estimate for Mexico (via google) of 127.5 million.

If we add the estimate of more than 30,000 people reported missing/disappeared as reported by Mexican government agencies and civic groups, then the number of people killed or disappeared since 2007 is likely greater than 268,000. See:

The table below provides total homicides reported for the previous four “sexenios” (presidential terms). President Enrique Peña Nieto’s term began in December 2012. Homicides decreased slightly during the first three years of his term, then increased steadily after 2015 (see table above). If the trend continues, EPN’s sexenio (which ends in Dec 2018) will probably be the most violent in terms of total homicides. To more accurately compare these trends over time, it will be necessary to calculate the murder rates (#homicides per 100,000 people) based on the population during each period.

The SESNSP REPORTED A TOTAL of 2,575 victims of intentional homicide (homicidios doloso) in December 2017. This brings the total number of homicide victims in 2017 to 29,168. This total represents an average of more than 2,400 victims per month; 80 victims per day. Homicide victims in 2017 surpass the total number of homicide victims (27,213) in 2011, making 2017 the most violent year in recent history in Mexico.

**The murder rate in 2017 is based on the 2016 population estimate for Mexico (via google) of 127.5 million.

If we add the estimate of more than 30,000 people reported missing/disappeared as reported by Mexican government agencies and civic groups, then the number of people killed or disappeared since 2007 is likely greater than 268,000. See:

The table below provides total homicides reported for the previous four “sexenios” (presidential terms). President Enrique Peña Nieto’s term began in December 2012. Homicides decreased slightly during the first three years of his term, then increased steadily after 2015 (see table above). If the trend continues, EPN’s sexenio (which ends in Dec 2018) will probably be the most violent in terms of total homicides. To more accurately compare these trends over time, it will be necessary to calculate the murder rates (#homicides per 100,000 people) based on the population during each period.

At least 15 people were killed during Thursday afternoon and evening in Juarez in a series of multiple homicide incidents… In one of these events, three women were shot to death. One of the victims is reported to be a minor. In all, 18 people have been killed in the first 4 days of 2018. molly

Racha violenta: matan a 15

Staff/
El Diario de Juárez | Viernes 05 Enero 2018 | 00:01:00 hrs

The articles below from El Diario de Juarez summarize the bad news in terms of violence in the city in 2017. There were a total of 88 homicides in December, making the last month the most violent of the year. There were 772 total homicides in 2017–a 43% increase over the number of homicides in 2016. There are some differences in the numbers that I’ve kept over the years and those published in El Diario. I think this comes from exactly which municipals are included in the counts for each year. A separate article yesterday reported a total of 94 homicides of women in 2017. (Another summary article said 96, so I recorded 95 in my tally). Either number comes out to 12.3 percent of the total victims being women in 2017–this is a significant increase over last year. Still, the average percentage of female homicides (compared to the totals) comes to 9.4 percent from 1993–present.

These numbers will probably be adjusted a few times as generally happens at the end of the year, but the trend will be about the same–significant increases in homicides in Juarez make 2017 the most violent year since 2012. I’ve also posted here the tallies I have, including some variation from those reported in the past two days in El Diario. molly molloy

Alcanza violencia nivel de hace 5 años

This excellent article presents the cruel reality of family separation now practiced by ICE and CBP with the willing participation of immigration judges. This family’s experience shows how arbitrary asylum officers can be in a credible fear interview. One member gets a positive credible fear determination, another with the same story is deemed negative. So much has to do with the situation of the interview… A detained person may not feel free or able to adequately describe what has happened. The document reproduced shows numerous errors of translation or transcription. There is no indication that this family has an advocate who could help to clarify this story or provide documents to corroborate the case. News articles about the murder in El Salvador would have to be translated into English in order to be accepted as evidence in immigration court. The situation of gangs, military and police violence in El Salvador sounds too chaotic to be true to most Americans…even those officials trained to make these determinations. The mother is criminally charged, separated from her child and depressed. Is it any wonder that she cannot adequately explain the details of her case to a voice on a telephone? She doesn’t even know where her child is, or if she will be sent back to El Salvador where she has nothing and lose custody of her child forever. Where she may not even survive.

In a legitimate process, the three members of this family would be able to seek asylum together since the dangers they face come from the same facts: the murder of their husband/father; the threats and retributions by both Salvadoran military officials and gangs. A person with expertise would explain the process, would counsel them. Instead, each person faces this confusing legal process alone; the mother is still detained and with a criminal charge in El Paso, she is unlikely to ever qualify for bond. She may not even have an asylum hearing as she did not pass her credible fear interview. In the El Paso immigration court, 98 percent of asylum cases are denied. With the criminal illegal entry charge, she may not even qualify for asylum.

Her adult son who passed his credible fear interview will have an asylum hearing in 2020 and can work. It is unclear if he has representation. A positive credible fear determination does not guarantee that he will be granted asylum. On the interview form (included at the link) the officer finds that there is “NO NEXUS” for his asylum claim… This means that his story does not indicate clear evidence that the persecution he suffered in El Salvador is due to his race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. However, his story is centered on the fact that his father was a military officer and was murdered by gang members due to actions he took as part of his job. Then the son was targeted and persecuted by both the military and the gangs. It is likely that an asylum attorney could establish the required nexus in this case.

Multiply this story (by hundreds? thousands?) and get an idea of the impact of a system designed to deport as many people as possible and to deny access to people with legitimate asylum claims. Separating families at the border is now deemed a legitimate practice by DHS to deter people from Central America trying to reach safety…many of them children. Instead of traveling with a parent, it is likely that many more will be handed over to human smugglers.

Go to the link to see the photos and the immigration documents included with this story. molly molloy

EL PASO – The boy was crying as federal agents ordered him into the government vehicle. Tell your mother goodbye, they said.

It was late October, and Blanca Vasquez and her 12-year-old son, Luis, had only been in the United States for a few hours. They had crossed the Rio Grande near El Paso, giving themselves up to Border Patrol agents to ask for asylum. A gang in El Salvador had murdered her husband, a military sergeant, and she said they were now after Luis.

For decades, hundreds of thousands of immigrant families from Central America, escaping gang violence and political persecution, have followed a similar path, relying on international treaties protecting those seeking asylum from being summarily turned away.

Vasquez figured she and Luis would be detained, or even released, while she fought for asylum. A 20-year-old federal settlement that bars the extended detention of migrant children would ensure they stayed together.

An excellent report in the Washington Post on the overall failure of Mexico’s justice “reform,” a project promoted for many years and with millions of dollars from the US. The state of Chihuahua was one of the first Mexican states to adopt the new justice system and several attorneys general from New Mexico have participated in US-AID-funded training projects for Mexican prosecutors, judges and lawyers.

I think it is one of the least-publicized and unknown chapters of the failure to address crime and violence in Mexico. In addition to this new Washington Post piece, it seems a good time to again highlight Charles Bowden’s Mother Jones story from 2009… from the first years of the hyper-violence in Juarez and Chihuahua. He tells the story of Mexican reporter Emilio Gutierrez, fleeing for his life after being threatened with death by a Mexican army officer because of his reporting about military harassment against migrants passing through the border village of Palomas back in 2005…

I interviewed Emilio for hours at that time along with Chuck, and we also spent hours with the editors and fact checkers from the magazine who did not believe that the Mexican army could possibly be the perpetrator of the violence and corruption in Mexico. After all, the Mexican president had only recently sent the army to Mexican cities, towns and countryside to fight drug trafficking. Emilio was one of the first voices to tell American readers what Mexican state power was really up to. And what it did at that time was mild compared to the present and future now that the Mexican military has been granted even more impunity through the new internal security law: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-violence-victims/victims-of-mexico-military-abuses-shudder-at-new-security-law-idUSKBN1E92LR

Since 2007, the militarized “drug war” has killed more than 200,000 people in Mexico:

Here’s the most succinct description of the truth we forever refuse to learn about Mexico (thanks to Charles Bowden, writing in 2009):

“There are two Mexicos.

There is the one reported by the US press, a place where the Mexican president is fighting a valiant war on drugs, aided by the Mexican Army and the Mérida Initiative, the $1.4 billion in aid the United States has committed to the cause. This Mexico has newspapers, courts, laws, and is seen by the United States government as a sister republic.

It does not exist.

There is a second Mexico where the war is for drugs, where the police and the military fight for their share of drug profits, where the press is restrained by the murder of reporters and feasts on a steady diet of bribes, and where the line between the government and the drug world has never existed.